In the United States, as in many countries, there are different groups who take different positions on all manner of issues. Quite often, those in one group have heated and angry disagreements with those in other groups. Each group tends to view those in other groups as the enemy. Sometimes, those in one group treat those in “enemy” groups with hatred, contempt, and even violence.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43–45)

Is our view of who we should love and who we should hate more like the view of those to whom Jesus spoke or more like the view of Jesus?

Jesus said to His Jewish hearers, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” That was what this Jewish audience had heard. It was presumably a principle they were living by or else Jesus would not have bothered to mention it. But is it not also something we hear continually? Is it not, for example, exemplified in the form of discourse modeled by millions of participants on many social media platforms–the places where most young people are now learning the basic rules of how to interact with other human beings?

In the United States, as in many countries, there are different groups who take different positions on all manner of issues. Quite often, those in one group have heated and angry disagreements with those in other groups. Each group tends to view those in other groups as the enemy. Sometimes, those in one group treat those in “enemy” groups with hatred, contempt, and even violence. In some of our local communities, there are members of different groups physically fighting one another in the streets. In many of our virtual “communities,” there are members of different groups verbally fighting one another in the comment boxes.

As Christians, we live in the midst of a world that teaches us by word and deed to “hate our enemy.” Jesus instructs His followers to respond to our enemy differently. So, do we respond as Jesus commanded by loving our enemy and praying for him? Or do we respond the same way so many unbelievers do, by hating our enemy? Where are we going in order to learn what our response to our enemy should be? Scripture or Twitter?

All any of us have to do to know how we tend to respond to an enemy is to ask ourself who in this country aggravates us the most? Who makes me angry? Is it the person with bumper stickers for a candidate I don’t like? Is it the protestor for this cause or that cause? Who among my fellow citizens do I view as “the enemy”? Once we’ve answered that question, we should re-read what Jesus says in Matthew 5 and prayerfully examine our hearts.

Does Jesus’s command here make us uncomfortable? If we are behaving in a worldly manner, His words will certainly make us uncomfortable. They certainly made Jesus’s first hearers uncomfortable. His words make us uncomfortable because we have all sinned in this regard. We have all done the opposite of what Jesus commands here. Rather than showing the love of Christ toward our “enemies” by praying for them and proclaiming the Gospel to them, we either want to jump into the melee and start punching people in the face or we gleefully cheer on the hatred of those who do.

Jesus’s command in these verses, as in the rest of His Sermon, calls for a radical re-thinking of our relation as Christians to people in the world in which we live. It is completely contrary to the world’s way of thinking. Loving your enemy and praying for him isn’t the way we do things in these parts. It ain’t natural. Well, that’s because what is natural to our sinful flesh is sin. What is required in order to respond as Jesus commanded is something supernatural, namely the Holy Spirit.

Now, does loving your enemy mean that you are going to have warm fuzzy feelings of affection toward him or her or approve everything he or she says or does? No, that’s not the meaning of love here. To love someone is to desire good for them. When we watch the news, or scroll through some social media feed and see someone doing something sinful, we can have a righteous anger, but that doesn’t mean we should not desire the good for that someone.

In particular, we should desire the ultimate good for them, namely their salvation. If this person we consider an enemy is a lost sinner, he or she is held captive to sin and death and is facing an eternity suffering the wrath of God. Thus, Jesus’s command to pray for our enemies. If they are lost, we are to pray for their salvation and if possible proclaim the Gospel of Christ to them. We too were once in their shoes.

Proclaiming the Gospel to a lost enemy does not mean ignoring sin, but it does involve understanding that lost sinners sin, not being surprised by that fact, and understanding that Christ is their only hope. As the Canons of Dordt explain, “it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel” (Second Main Point, Art. 5). Note the command to repent. In order for a person to repent, he or she must be convicted of his or her sin.

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